What year is it again?

This is an open letter to everyone who feels the need to dig deep in all aspects of unjust behavior and find fault within victims of inhumane crimes set upon them.

How does it feel to be on the outside where you’re not immediately affected?

I want to know, truly.

How it feels to put bobby pins in your braids so when you take them out you can ‘feel’ like you have an “Afro” for the night. I want to understand how you believe it’s okay to put on a du-rag, coat yourself in tanner that makes your skin darker than mine, stick a fake gun in your pocket, go to a party and shout the N-word because it’s ‘fun,’ and that’s your perception of black people.

I can’t understand this Country and how we have to continuously see black bodies and brown bodies be publicly executed, sometimes in broad daylight, on camera and no one except the VICTIM be at fault.

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, and we’re done watching and waiting.This invention called ‘whiteness’ uses and abuses us, burying Black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is though…just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.” – Jesse Williams 2016 BET Awards

There is this fascination and infatuation with blackness and wanting to be a part of it when it seems acceptable and ‘fun! cool! hip! exciting!” When the new dance moves jump to the spotlight and news anchors are ‘dabbing’ and ‘whipping it’ it’s all great fun.

On Tuesday July 5, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Alton Sterling was pinned down to the ground and shot dead at point-blank range in front of a convenience store. Sterling was killed for none other than the “devious” crime of…selling CD’s.

Yes, his life was stolen from his wife and five children because he was so much of a “threat” even while on the ground and stuck beneath, not one but two other men and they felt the need to murder him.

Pictured: Alton Sterling

Just a day after Alton Sterling was killed, the public caught wind of the “modern day lynching” that happened in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

Philando Castile was murdered in front of his girlfriend, who live-streamed the ordeal, and her 4-year-old toddler.

He was killed simply for complying with the exact directions a cowardice cop told him…I thought following orders, and walking down the straight and narrow path was all black people had to do in order to not be killed in the hands of the police though. Right?

There’s no other way that we can continue to protest and march peacefully. Nothing is changing, the only time change came about is when we boycotted and let those in power know that our dollar matters, even when they don’t think our lives do.

The black community is divided, and a lot of us don’t want to hear that, because it’s true. We have to come together and build ourselves up into a community that cares about one other, just like many other races do in times of need, and keep our dollars in our own communities and grow.

Pictured: Philando Castille

The alarming rate of black-on-black crime threatens our concrete security. The killing of blacks by whites, particularly police, touches something more elemental, a sense of fragility within a race still struggling to throw off the burdens, both psychic and economic, of the nation’s tortured history. – Stephen Carter, Bloomberg View (Chicago Tribune)

Every single time, we can literally have video evidence of a police officer murdering a black person for ‘having a broken tail light, or not signaling to change lanes, or playing with a toy gun *in an open carry state*’ and people will still fix their mouths to say “if you cared so much why aren’t you paying attention to what happened in _____, or if they would’ve done _____ he/she would still be alive.”

Derailing a serious situation in order to place blame on the victim is a disgusting tactic that I’m tired of fighting against. When people make the choice to be ignorant and to ignore an injustice just because they’re uncomfortable, then that’s on them. It is not black people’s burden to teach and show others how to not be prejudice and racist and all around a shitty person.

While many of us flock to social media and are trying to make our voices heard we have to remember that this is only the beginning. Our parent’s, grandparent’s, and their parent’s had to fight this fight and for it being 2016 you’d think we wouldn’t have to put on our gloves and get in the ring.

But we must.

Allowing angry old white men who are complacent with the status quo need to know that this unfair treatment of people of color is bullshit and enough is enough.We need to all hit the pavement and while we’re at it grab our non-black friends that know the system is broken and strive for a change.

We must organize ourselves, create safe zones, and educate our way up into spaces predominantly held by people* in power and demand a change.

People of color who are not black take a stand for us and fight, get out into the protests and demand justice for us and for yourselves. We all need to be about one cause to make anything happen, and every one of us must be a part of it.

Pictured: Malcom X

My beautiful black sisters and brothers we must grow together. Take the time to have a mental health day, having to view one another on social media, all across the world being strewn across pavement with bloodied bodies takes a harboring toll on us.

We all feel it, so if you don’t feel like talking and explaining why this shit is to much to your non-black comrades, that’s okay.

But take care of yourselves, take care of each other and stay sane in a world that is not.

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